For Constitution Day, Daniel Dreisbach (American University) visited the John Dickinson Forum at George Fox University. He offered a fascinating discussion about the Biblical foundations of the America’s constitutional order. This event was also part of JMC's Pacific Northwest Initiative, supported by the generosity of MJ Murdock Charitable Trust.

In recognition of Constitution Day, Christopher Newport University hosted a debate between John Yoo, Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law at University of California at Berkeley School of Law, and Jonathan Turley, Shapiro Chair for Public Interest Law at George Washington University, over the how the status of the Constitution changes during foreign conflict. Professor Yoo served from 2001-03 as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice, focusing on issues involving foreign affairs and the separation of powers. Professor Turley has written extensively in areas ranging from constitutional law to tort law. He has authored numerous articles appearing in law journals at such schools as Georgetown, Harvard, and Northwestern.

We praise freedom of speech because it reminds us that we human beings are not omniscient and may be mistaken in what we say and do; that there is another side to most positions we take; and that having the courage to raise objections and the wisdom to listen to them when raised by others is a mark of intelligence and prudence.

The University of Missouri invited James W. Ceaser, Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia, to deliver this year’s Constitution Day lecture. In his lecture, Professor Ceaser discussed the state of dialogue on college campuses. Professor Ceaser has published extensively on American Presidential Selection, Liberal Democracy and Political Science, Reconstructing America, and Nature and History in American Political Development. He has held visiting professorships at the University of Florence, the University of Basel, Oxford University, the University of Bordeaux, and the University of Rennes. Professor Ceaser is a frequent contributor to the popular press, and he often comments on American Politics for the Voice of America.

Jeffrey Collins, an Associate Professor at Queens University, delivered Ohio University’s Constitution Day lecture this year. Professor Collins took issue with the view that Hobbes was the chief forerunner of religious liberty. Locke is the true father of religious freedom, he argued, because Locke was the first modern thinker to emphasize the crucial connection between opinion and practice. Professor Collins teaches and writes on the history of politics and religion.

Daniel Burns, Assistant Professor of Politics at the University of Dallas, delivered the University of Dallas's annual Constitution Day lecture. In his lecture, Professor Burns contrasted the First Amendment's two guarantees: the freedom of speech and the freedom of religion. He argued that free speech is central to our political process while religion, when politicized, is an impediment to it. He concluded that the questions of ultimate meaning are best settled elsewhere than in law. Professor Burns has published on Augustinian and Islamic political thought.

The Constitution has a beauty, an allure… It’s not all that interesting sentence by sentence, article by article. And yet we love it as if it’s a thing of great beauty. I think that’s not because of its mechanics or particular phrases… but because of its promise. The Constitution promises us that we can rule.

In observance of Constitution Day, the University of Oklahoma invited Stephen Vladeck, the A. Dalton Cross Professor in Law at the University of Texas School of Law, to discuss Constitutional crises. Professor Vladeck said that while episodes like Reconstruction and Watergate may seem like Constitutional crises, they actually demonstrate the Constitution's strength. Examining the current state of the Constitution, Professor Vladeck said we are experiencing not a Constitutional crisis but a political crisis. Nonetheless, he warned, heightened partisanship can beget a Constitutional crisis. Professor Vladeck’s teaching and research focus on federal jurisdiction, constitutional law, and national security law.

Wofford College hosted Dr. Stephen Knott, a professor of national security at the United States Naval War College and an Alexander Hamilton scholar, who gave a lecture on the impact of Alexander Hamilton on America's Constitutional order. In his book, "Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth," Professor Knott deals with Hamilton's immense and complicated legacy among Americans.

In honor of Constitution Day, Boston College invited Dr. J. Russell Muirhead, the Robert Clements Professor of Democracy and Politics and Professor of Government at Dartmouth College, to give a lecture on the beauty of the Constitution. Professor Muirhead explained in his talk that while some of the Constitution's literal text is dry, there is splendor in its promise to grant rule to the people. He warned, however, that the Constitution's aesthetic can distract us from its potential dangers, such as its tendency towards elite rule. Professor Muirhead has published extensively on political parties, partisanship, and ideology.

Religion teaches citizens to recognize their duties to their country as sacred. It teaches me to think of service to my country, up to and including giving my life for my country, as not just an annoying trade off that I may be forced to accept, not just an unavoidable part of a contract that I had to sign in order to secure my own preservation, but rather as a sacred obligation that will be part of what I am judged on when I die.

Dr. Sanford Levinson, who holds the W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial Chair in Law at the University of Texas Law School, delivered a thought-provoking Constitution Day lecture at Notre Dame. In it, he challenged the view that the Constitution is nearly perfect and suggested that the time is ripe for Americans to call for a Constitutional Convention to amend the Constitution's flaws. Dr. Levinson argued that parts of the Constitution, like the Electoral College and bicameral legislature, do not sufficiently reflect America's democratic character.

Dr. James Stoner, Jr., the Hermann Moyse, Jr., Professor and Director of the Eric Voegelin Institute in the Department of Political Science at LSU, delivered the 2017 Constitution Day lecture at Oglethorpe University. In his lecture, "Positive Freedom of Speech: The Value and Limits of Libertarianism," he considered the place of free speech in libertarian political thought. Three respondents, Prof. Devon Belcher, Prof. Daniel Cullen, and Prof. Rebecca Clark Schemer offered both praises and challenges to Dr. Stoner's remarks.

Salve Regina celebrated Constitution Day with a lecture by Dr. Aurelian Craiutu, Professor of Political Science at Indiana University Bloomington, where he also directs the Tocqueville Program. In his lecture, Professor Craiutu revisited lessons from the Founding Fathers, with special emphasis on George Washington's farewell address and freedom of speech.

The observance of Constitution Day on many of those campuses used to be minimal to nonexistent. But now, … the Constitution Day Initiative is helping schools mount rich and sophisticated programming, with great speakers and exciting subjects.

Henry Olsen, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and author of "The Working Class Republican: Ronald Reagan and the Return of Blue-Collar Conservatism," spoke at Villanova's Matthew J. Ryan Center about Ronald Reagan's distinctive constitutionalism. Following his remarks were responses by Senator Earl Baker and Charlie Gerow, CEO of Quantum Communications. Olsen has recently written on the theme of Reagan's constitutionalism in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Hundreds of students gathered at the University of North Texas on September 14 to watch state representatives Lynn Stucky and Ramon Romero Jr. debate a bill passed by the Texas State Senate that penalizes law enforcement leaders for not cooperating with federal deportation authorities. This law, which has been blocked by a federal court, would effectively prevent any Texas city from establishing itself as a "sanctuary" for undocumented immigrants. One of the central questions that arose concerning the constitutionality of the measure was whether it violated the First Amendment by preventing municipal officials from expressing their points of view.

Professor of History George Forgie delivered the 2016 Constitution Day lecture at the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Study of Core Texts and Ideas at the University of Texas at Austin. His lecture addressed Abraham Lincoln's understanding of the President's constitutional duties during the Civil War. “I would save the Union,” President Lincoln wrote to the New York journalist Horace Greeley during the Civil War. “I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution.” Some of his admirers have said he did exactly that. Some of his detractors have said that he sacrificed the Constitution in order to save the Union and free the slaves. Forgie's lecture asked the question: what were Lincoln’s priorities? Specifically, how did he situate the Constitution among the many American treasures he said he wanted to preserve?

The Janus Forum at the University of Miami in Ohio partnered with the Jack Miller Center to host a day-long Constitution Day event consisting in two roundtable discussions—"The Supreme Court and its Future" and "The Constitution and its Future"—as well as a moderated conversation between Yale Law School Professor Akhil Reed Amar and Professor Jeffrey Rosen of George Washington University Law School. These three discussions engaged with a wide range of questions concerning historical and modern interpretations of the U.S. Constitution.

At the center of Florida Atlantic University's 2017 Constitution Day celebration on September 19 and 20 was a talk by White House correspondent April Ryan on tensions between the President and the mainstream press. Ryan also participated in a panel discussion of modern problems of the press and the First Amendment with several other prominent Florida journalists.

Late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia delivered the 2015 annual Constitution Day lecture for the Project for the Study of Liberal Democracy at Rhodes College. Justice Scalia, nominated by President Ronald Reagan in 1986, was the longest serving member of the Supreme Court until his death in February of 2016. In his lecture, Scalia delivered a critique of his colleagues' "living constitution" approach to constitutional interpretation and warned against what he argued was an unconstitutional expansion of the Court's powers.

For its 2016 Constitution Day event, the Center for American Studies at Christopher Newport University hosted a live-streamed debate on the constitutionality of the collection and use of personal data by internet and cell phone services. The debate was between Seth Stodder, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Border, Immigration & Trade Policy under President Obama, and David Cole, professor of constitutional law, national security, and criminal justice at Georgetown University Law Center.

As part of a special Constitution Day Initiative program for 2016, the Janus Center partnered with the Jack Miller Center to host a day-long Constitution Day event consisting in two roundtable discussions and a moderated conversation between Professor Akhil Reed Amar of Yale Law School and Professor Jeffrey Rosen of George Washington University Law School. These discussions engaged with a wide range questions concerning historical and modern interpretations of the U.S. Constitution. Like the other 2016 Jack Miller Constitution Day events, the University of Miami event was live-streamed.

In an event hosted by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Study of Core Texts & Ideas, Professor of History George Forgie delivered a lecture titled "Lincoln and the Constitution in the Civil War." “I would save the Union,” President Lincoln wrote to the New York journalist Horace Greeley during the Civil War. “I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution.” Some of his admirers have said he did exactly that. Some of his detractors have said that he sacrificed the Constitution in order to save the Union—and free the slaves. Forgie's lecture asked the question: what were Lincoln’s priorities? Specifically, how did he situate the Constitution among the many American treasures he said he wanted to preserve? The event was live-streamed.

Jack Miller Center partner program Center for American Studies hosted a live-streamed debate titled "Cell Phones, Social Media and Civil Rights: The Constitutional Limits of Data Mining." The debate was between Seth Stodder, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Border, Immigration & Trade Policy under President Obama, and David Cole, professor of constitutional law, national security, and criminal justice at Georgetown University Law Center.